130 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 10 



all the enterprises connected with the project, because it requires 

 rapid travel over long distances during the busiest season, but it is 

 considered inevitable. The spread of the weevil has been slow and 

 uniform, regardless of the character of the country, whether cultivated 

 or wild, and the evidence all indicates that it will continue so. 



Methods of Spread 



The means by which the alfalfa weevil travels is rendered an impor- 

 tant question by the quarantine regulations which Montana, Oregon, 

 Idaho, Arizona, and California adopted in the effort to exclude it from 

 their territory. Consequently a minute study has been made of the 

 natural locomotion of the insect, and of commercial traffic, involving 

 the examination of wagons, freight and express cars, warehouses and 

 stores, together with their contents. Nearly every case of the occur- 

 rence of weevils in commerce has been traced to actual contact of the 

 commodity with infested alfalfa hay. Weevils are found in hay hauled 

 in wagons, in certain cars of potatoes, and in clothing worn upon 

 trains and carried in trunks. Representatives of the states mentioned, 

 have embodied these facts in nearly unanimous recommendations for 

 a revision of the quarantines. 



Conclusion 



These are the principal economic results of the alfalfa weevil investi- 

 gation, based upon a large amount of technical work, some of which 

 has been tedious in the performance and might prove so in the presen- 

 tation. Interesting biological problems which have been encountei'ed, 

 and some of which have been solved, deserve ampler discussion than is 

 possible here, while a volume could be written upon the executive 

 obstacles which have been overcome. 



President C. Gordon Hewitt: This paper is now open for dis- 

 cussion. 



Mr. T. J. Headlee: Is there any evidence that the alfalfa weevil 

 will not be able to come to the eastern part of the United States and 

 prove as damaging here as it is in the western alfalfa growing states? 



Mr. G. I. Reeves: There is no such evidence. There is evidence 

 that in high altitudes the weevil is less destructive, and there is a possi- 

 bility that in a different climate from that of Utah, the weevils would 

 not be forced into inactivity by the heat of summer, the generations 

 would be more or less spread out, and the feeding would continue 

 through a larger portion of the year but be less concentrated and there- 

 fore less destructive. The work of the weevil is only disastrous when 



